U.S. Rep. Hansen Clarke says that, not only did exiting Detroit Public Schools emergency financial manager Robert Bobb add to an already-horrid budget crisis, he also may have left millions of dollars in funding for the schools laying on the table.

May 20, Detroit Free Press: U.S. Rep. Hansen Clarke, D-Detroit, said Detroit Public Schools failed last year to apply for a chunk of $10 million in federal grants he secured, a pot that has grown to $30 million this year.

Clarke criticized former schools emergency manager Robert Bobb, saying Bobb apparently ignored Clarke’s personal urging to seek the money to help turn schools into local community centers that provide day care, job training and adult education to educate parents.

What with Bobb having already given way to new EFM Roy Roberts, Clarke's revelation and his comments might seem like needlessly slamming the exit door on Bobb on his way out. But they're also yet another reason to wonder just what it is we were supposed to be getting with Bobb and to worry whether we'll get more of the same from his replacement.

Only the very naive actually expected Bobb to "fix" the schools when Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm put him in charge of DPS finances. Detroit's educational morass has been decades in the making and will take at least as long to resolve. Meanwhile, the fiscal problems were at least as much a result of state meddling as the city's comically inept elected school board.

But a lot of Detroiters worry that Bobb's real job was, in fact, to make an awful situation that much worse, to make matters so untenable, so unstable as to essentially deliver the district into the hands of charters and educational profiteers who've become the darlings of the corporate political mainstream of both parties. When Clarke says Bobb didn't even bother to pursue millions in grant money that could've helped the schools, he fuels that speculation.

And why not? The district remains woeful, yes, but even if you favor mixing institutions and trying new approaches, there just is no measure to suggest that DPS has ever benefited from these state takeovers, not in 1999 and not now. Bobb got full reign and he made matters worse. And surely, his turning away millions in grant money didn't help.

It's bad enough that Bobb failed. But to hear Clarke's comments, it's easy to understand why many Detroiters wonder whether he was even trying.